In the 1950s, Peru’s Cabo Blanco Fishing Club was a famous rod-and-reel outpost—the world record black marlin, weighing 1,560 pounds, was caught here. Ernest Hemingway visited, along with other celebs. Now the classic coastal village and some 2,500 square miles of ocean around it could become part of a new ecotourism project—or be turned over to more oil drilling platforms.

Those of us who follow the way of wanderlust are wild romantics. When we encounter the pheromone of the unfamiliar, we feel, see, touch, taste, and smell more keenly. Our minds are on high alert, noticing and processing everything—from the geometry of cobbled paths and thatched roofs to the tones of stray dogs and wild birds to the smell of new flowers and old dust. We fall in love with the world.

When I landed in Los Cabos, I almost immediately started daydreaming. You will too, if you come here. It’s rare that I arrive at a destination and start planning my return trip. Cabo hooked me in an hour. Here’s why.

In a heated scene in the new HBO film, Hemingway & Gellhorn, Ernest Hemingway locks Martha Gellhorn in her hotel room in Spain. He knows his lover well: with a violent war ensuing outside, she’ll step right into the crossfire if given the chance. But when the real-life Gellhorn wasn’t immersed in war, she often locked herself up — in rural retreats around the world. Here are five places where this legendary writer found escape.

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